Dive Brief:
- Basin Electric Power Cooperative and three regions of the Western Area Power Administration have decided to pursue full membership in the Southwest Power Pool, expanding the regional transmission organization’s efforts to operate in the Western interconnect, SPP announced Thursday.
- SPP has now received membership commitments from seven Western utilities and says it will soon become the “first organization in the U.S. to provide full regional transmission organization services in both the Eastern and Western Interconnections of the nation’s power grid.”
- The utilities pursuing SPP membership are already participating in its Western Energy Imbalance Service market, or WEIS, but SPP said the full membership commitments mark the “first major expansion” of its service territory in almost eight years.
Dive Insight:
SPP says growing its service territory is expected to generate economic and reliability benefits for members “through access to a larger generation fleet, greater geographic diversity, and increased trading opportunities in SPP’s energy markets.”
Expansion “will open a vast array of opportunities for utilities in SPP’s growing market footprint,” SPP Senior Vice President of Operations Bruce Rew said in a statement. “Creating multiple market options for new members will enable market designs that align with the unique needs of one or more geographic regions and provide opportunity for all to benefit.”
WAPA Administrator and CEO Tracey LeBeau issued a Sept. 8 decision letter authorizing its Colorado River Storage Project, Rocky Mountain region and Upper Great Plains region to pursue final negotiations with SPP regarding membership.
Along with WAPA and Basin Electric, utilities planning to join SPP’s Western RTO in early 2026 include Colorado Springs Utilities, Deseret Generation and Transmission Cooperative, Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, Platte River Power Authority, and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association.
The seven utilities will now begin preparing for participation in SPP’s governance structure, energy markets, planning processes and other services, SPP said.
SPP also said it “anticipates further expansion of its RTO service territory in the west” and plans to integrate new members beginning in 2027. Utilities considering membership have a March 2024 deadline to indicate interest in participating by March 2027.
Tri-State called SPP’s expanded roster of utilities “a significant step forward” in the association's goal to participate in an RTO in the Western interconnect. The utility already participates in the SPP RTO in the eastern Eastern interconnect.
Participation in Western day-ahead markets and coordinated transmission development “will advance our reliability and affordability goals, and further support the integration of new resources and achieve emissions reductions,” Tri-State said.
